Once a mob-connected Chicago bar owner and bookie, Ross Miller wanted his children to select a more suitable career path.

Miller chose another path, all right: After law school, he worked his way up the political ladder and eventually became Nevada's longest-serving governor (1989-1999).

In his new memoir, "Son of a Gambling Man," Miller chronicles his path to the governor's mansion, starting with his childhood in Chicago. Miller's book is a history, a political tome, an autobiography and a love letter to Las Vegas.

"(I) wanted to tell the history of Las Vegas from (the point of view) of someone who not only experienced it, but was involved in it," said Miller, 68, his gravelly voice sounding like a storm rolling into town.

The book begins on Chicago's North Side, where the Millers lived in a Glenwood Avenue brownstone, eight blocks from Lake Shore Drive. His father co-owned a bar with his uncle and ran a bookie joint out of the back room.

In 1955, when Miller was 10 years old, the family moved to Las Vegas after his father bought into the Riviera, a hotel and casino on the Las Vegas strip. Speaking by phone from his office in Las Vegas, Miller said the move offered his father a second chance.

"My father came from a background of illegal gaming, and at the time that Las Vegas was getting started, it was necessary for its foundation to have people with experience and to give them the opportunity to live and work in a legalized casino era," he said.

As Miller sought a livelihood away from blackjack tables and roulette wheels, the city grew and changed.

During his lifetime, Las Vegas went "from a place run by the mob to one where some of the most successful, sophisticated corporations on Earth reside," Miller writes in the book's author's note. Similarly, Miller grew from "a boy born into the gambling world ... into a man who oversaw a gambling world that grew along with him."

The book meditates on the loving, yet complex, relationship Miller had with his father. He describes the elder Miller, who died in 1975, as stoic, hard working and stingy with praise.

"The last thing that he said to me before he died was that he loved me, " Miller said, "and that was the only time that I heard that directly from him."

Asked if it was hard to write about his father, Miller paused.

"Aspects of the backgrounds of some of my dad's friends, those circumstances, and actually writing that he was indicted even though it was dismissed — those types of things were difficult to write," he said. "But I felt that I couldn't tell half a story. I felt it all needed to be in there because it did, in fact, happen."

Miller said he adopted many of his father's traits, including his drive and his belief that your word is your bond. Unlike his father, though, — who worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week — Miller always set aside time to spend with his family despite the demands of his job.

"My wife and I both made a very strong effort to try and maintain as normal a life as possible during the years that I was governor," he said.

His son, Ross Miller, who is named after his grandfather and serves as secretary of state for Nevada, attested to his father's efforts.

"I played basketball religiously growing up and as a result I had quite a number of basketball games and there were very few games that he missed," he said. "He was almost reliably sitting in the bleachers watching the games."

Miller joined the gaming business after his governorship. Today, he sits on the board of directors of Wynn Resorts and International Game Technology.

"It is kind of ironic since my dad didn't want me to have anything to do with gaming," Miller said with a laugh, "but the gaming industry that I am involved with now is not the one that he was involved with then."